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It’s not that he necessarily looks out of his element. But it’s hard not to picture the 52-year-old survival expert and reality-TV pioneer, better known to TV viewers as Survivorman, in harsher terrain. You know the ones, where he needs to eat grubs or worms or scorpions or — in the recent Season 6 opener set in the windy wilds of Tierra del Fuego, Argentina — maggoty wild-cow fat.

“I live a life that is always full of juxtaposition,” says Stroud, settling in on a couch as a publicist offers us bottled water. “I could either have a week in a dugout canoe being Survivorman in a jungle or be down in Vegas watching a Cirque du Soleil show or rocking out somewhere. I like bouncing between the two worlds. I always have.”

Dressed casually in jeans and a sweater, there is a little more grey in Stroud’s stubble than when he began filming his survival adventures 12 years ago. But the premise behind his show, for the most part, hasn’t changed all the much over the years. It’s now on a new specialty network — Travel & Escape — and there will be a bit of a curveball thrown into the mix when Stroud’s 15-year-old son Logan tags along for a few adventures.

But the show’s guiding mantra — “no food, no shelter, no fresh water, no tools ... no camera crew” — has basically remained the same for the Toronto native, who has turned this simple premise into a thriving empire that includes books, spinoffs, lectures and, later this year, an album of original songs tentatively titled Earth Music.

“Survivorman remains true to the core, and always has,” Stroud says. “It was the original that started the genre of survival television.”

Still, Survivorman does come with varying shades these days. Stroud is on the promotional rounds not only for Season 6 of Survivorman, but also his handsome coffee-table book Beyond Survivorman, which itself is based on the spinoff of the same name.

Filled with gorgeous photography by Laura Bombier, it chronicles Stroud’s “year-long vision quest” that found him visiting remote cultures in Malaysia, Africa and Peru, among other places.

“The book itself was to showcase all the beautiful photography of that year that Laura Bombier took, but also tell the story behind the scenes of what I went through on a personal, spiritual level,” he says.

Of course, the major difference between Survivorman and Beyond Survivorman is the involvement of other people. The challenge, and arguably the appeal, inherent in the original was that Stroud was on his own in the wilderness, filming and fending for himself.

So he admits that putting his son Logan into the mix has added a new dimension, one that fits nicely with Stroud’s mission to turn his love of nature into teachable moments for younger viewers of his show.

“Logan is better at Call of Duty than he is at lighting a fire,” says Stroud. “He’s just a normal kid out there. He’s wearing the wrong clothes, he’s doing the wrong things and just being normal. I didn’t want to have a little Les Stroud out there, that would be a little too kitschy. Logan is just being himself and I think it’s a great example for parent-child relationships and dynamics.”

Season 6 will find Stroud surviving not only in Argentina, but also Tofino, Northern Ontario and Grenada Islands, among other rugged spots. Two episodes that are tentatively scheduled for February will find him in Alberta, where the self-described skeptic will be going after proof that Bigfoot exists.

Still, his attempts to find a mythical creature aside, Stroud claims that all of his endeavours are fuelled by the same sobering and universal truth, which applies to all cultures across the globe, but particularly those who still live off the land.

“We can’t survive without a life that lives in a reciprocal manner with the natural world,” he says. “If we don’t look after it, it won’t look after us. If we destroy it, it will destroy us. That universal truth was part of a lot of these cultures that I went into the jungles and deserts and forests with. It has always been a strong underlying subject of Survivorman. It’s been about connecting with the youth, connecting with the planet.

“Sorry, David Suzuki is right, we have to do these things, we have to go that route. I think sooner or later, the younger generation is going to revolt. I think the next war is going to be an environmental war. That is what is going to bring them up and get them angry because of what it is we are doing.”

The first episode of Season 6 of Survivorman runs Saturday at 6 p.m. on Travel & Escape.

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Les Stroud bounces back to wildman mode for fresh season of Survivorman

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